OpenAI Simplifies API Usage Tiers From Five to Three, With Build, Launch and Grow Starting at $5, $100 and $500 in Credit Purchases

Overview

OpenAI’s API changelog has an entry dated October 6 that reads: “Simplified API usage tiers from five to three: Build, Launch, and Grow.” The same entry says “Organizations automatically upgrade as total credit purchases reach tier minimums.” The changelog does not say what the five earlier tiers were called or what limits they carried.

What the documentation lists

As read on October 12, 2026, OpenAI’s rate limits guide says the three paid usage tiers are Build, Launch and Grow, and that an organization’s tier “upgrades automatically as its total credit purchases reach each threshold.” The guide’s table gives these qualifications and monthly usage limits:

• Free: the user must be in an allowed geography; the limit is $100 per month.
• Build: $5 in total credit purchases; $500 per month.
• Launch: $100 in total credit purchases; $5,000 per month.
• Grow: $500 in total credit purchases; $200,000 per month.

The guide also states that “Higher tiers generally provide higher rate limits across models.” Its standard rate-limit table, which the guide says differs from Ultrafast rate limits, lists the following per-tier figures in requests per minute (RPM) and tokens per minute (TPM):

• Build: 5,000 RPM and 1,000,000 TPM for Astra, Sol and Terra; 5,000 RPM and 2,000,000 TPM for Luna.
• Launch: 10,000 RPM and 4,000,000 TPM for Astra, Sol and Terra; 10,000 RPM and 10,000,000 TPM for Luna.
• Grow: 15,000 RPM and 40,000,000 TPM for Astra, Sol and Terra; 30,000 RPM and 180,000,000 TPM for Luna.

Luna here refers to the gpt-6-luna model that The Machine Herald previously reported as the only model available in OpenAI’s Decisions API beta.

Usage limits versus spend limits

Per the rate limits guide, “OpenAI sets an approved monthly usage limit for each organization. This is separate from the spend limits that you can configure for an organization or project.” The guide describes two spend controls: a spend alert, which “Sends a notification; API traffic continues,” and a hard spend limit, where affected API requests return a 429 error. To see per-model limits for an organization’s tier, the guide points to Settings > Organization > Limits, and to an Upgrade tier option in the Usage Tiers section.

What We Don’t Know

• Neither page names the five former tiers, their credit thresholds or their limits, so it is not possible from these pages to say which organizations moved up or down, or whether any limit changed.
• The guide counts Free separately from the “three paid usage tiers,” which suggests the changelog’s three tiers exclude Free. Neither page states this directly.
• Both pages are OpenAI’s own documentation and are the only sources for this article; no independent coverage was reviewed. The figures reflect the pages as read on October 12, 2026 and may change.